The Story Told by An Ancient Stone

stones do not lie, and the story this one tells is really quite simple: centuries before the advent of Islam, Jews worshipped on the Temple MountSometimes, all it takes is one ancient stone to upend all the vicious anti-Israel propaganda being hurled at us by our foes.

Archaeologists from Israel's Antiquities Authority recently uncovered a stone carving dating back nearly two thousand years which depicts the Menorah (candelabrum) that stood in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (see below).

The find took place at Migdal, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Israel's north.

Jews from across the country regularly made pilgrimage to the Temple, which was the seat of Judaism and its most holy of sites until being destroyed by the Roman invaders in the year 70 C.E. Obviously, the unknown artist who sculpted the stone was moved by his encounter with the Menorah at the Temple - so much so that when he got home he took the time and effort to engrave it.

Nowadays, of course, the Palestinians and much of the rest of the world is pressuring the Jewish state to turn over parts of Jerusalem - including the Temple Mount - to Arab control, as if their claim supersedes ours.

But stones do not lie, and the story this one tells is really quite simple: centuries before the advent of Islam, Jews worshipped on the Temple Mount. And thousands of years before the United Nations was established or the PLO was founded, it was the Jewish people who called Jerusalem home.